Steam automobile



oct. 20,1925. 1,557,782

L. L. SCOTT STEAM AUTOMOBILE Filed Sept. 23. 1921 2 Shets -Shnt l' Patented oci. 2o, 192s.

LEWIS L. SCOTT, 0F ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI.

STEAM AUTOMOBILE.

Application med september 2a, i921. serial No. 502,660.

To all whom t may concern.'

Be it'known that I, LEWIS L. Soo'r'r, a citizen of the United States, residing in the city of St. Louis and State of Missouri, have invented new and useful Improvements in Steam Automobiles, of which the followingv is a specification.

This inventionv relates to a new arrangement of boiler and to a'nieans of automatically controlling the cut ott' of the engine according to the speed of said engine.

The object of this invention is to simplify the opeiation of the steam automobile and to so arrange the space for the power. plant so that there will be no limitations iii the type of engine or rear axle used. 0

The usual location of the boiler. iii the steam car in under the hood. This arrangement limits the type of engine to be used and the type of rear axle. It is also customary to operate the engine cut ofi.' with a foot or hand lever. 'This manual operation of the engine cut-off is not only troublesome but does not lead to highest economy Aof the engine. I propose to automatically control the cut-off of the engine by the Speed of the engine so that as said engine slows down a longer cut-off is used and as theA engine speeds up (due to manuall operation of a throttle valve in the steam line) said engine operates with shorterl cut-off.

l/Vhen the engine is at rest the engine always has longest cut-off and in the starting position. Y

I propose to use an elongated type of horizontal boiler of Small diameter. The outsideshell of said boiler may be made square if space'conditions require it. This type ofboiler can be located at many .dlfferent points and permits the engine to be located under the hood of the car if desired so that there are no limitations as to the size and type of engine to be used.

The invention is illust-rated inthe accompanying drawings in which:

Fig. 1 is a partsectional view of my horizontal boiler. Fig. 2 is an end view of Fig. 1.v Fig. 3 is a plan view of my steam automobile chassis (with the engine case partlyl broken away) showing the cam which operates the valves. Fig. 4 is a sectional view ofthe governormechanism for automatically controlling the cam which controls the engine cut-off. Fig. 5 shows section of cam-shaft.

Referring now to the drawing, the numeral I indicates the wheel of my automobile, 2 indicates the frame member, 3 is the rear axle housing, 4 is the propeller shaft, 5 is the. fuel tank, 6 is the front axle, 7 is the engine,l case, 8 is thel engine flywheel, 9 isy a dynamo driven by the engine, 10 is a flexible coupling between the -dynamo and its drive shaft, 11 is the water tank, 12 is the'boiler casing,13 is an air blower casing, 14 is afuel spray nozzle, which may be the t-ype shown in my Patent No. A1,334,560 dated March 23, 1920. 15 is a spark plug lfor igniting the fuel spray, 16 is an air blowe-r'wheel, 17 indicates a water pump, 18 is a fuel pump, 19 is an electric motor which operates the fiielpump, water` pump and air blower in the same general manner as indicatedin my patent before' referred to.4 20 is a nichrome combustion vtube. which is surrounded 'by lthe inner yboiler coil 21, this coil has a steam outlet vat 22 and connects with the coil 23, the coil 23 connects with coil 24 and coil 24 connects withv coil 25 so that these four c oils are connected in series. 26 is the water inlet to the boiler coils. 27 is a chamber where combustion is completed and serves to direct the hot gases back over the boiler coils; said gases pass'between the boiler coils. and out through the openings 28, of coil 25, into the space enclosed by the shell 12. The combustion system is the saine as described in my patent before men` tioned; the vfuel is burned in the tube 20v and combustion is completed in the chamber 27. As the coil 21 contacts with the tube 20, said coil will absorb a great deal of heat from 'said tube 20. Referring to Fig. 3, 29 indicates a storage battery which is used for operating the motor 19 when initially starting to get up steam. Steam can be raised and the car under way in about 30 seconds time. The engine indicated by the numeral 7 is a 3-cylinder double acting steam engine with cranks set at- 120 degrees. The valves (not shown) are of the poppet type and are operated by a cam as indicated by t-he numeral v30. 31 indicates the short cut-off part of the cam, 32 indicates the long cutolf part of said. cam and 33 indicates the reverse cam. Said cam is driven by gears from the engine crank shaft (not shown) 34 is a pull rod which is used to operate the around the spring l52, so that as the rod 37 a bearing-for the rod 34. 36 is an enlarged head on the end of rod 34. Rod 34 is connected to the rod 37 by the lever 38 which is pivoted at 39; said rod 37 is adapted tobe operated manually when desired. 40 indicates a governor shaft` which is driven from the engine by gears 41 and 42, bearings for said governor shaft are pro-vided 'at 43. The governor, weights 44 are pivoted on the arms 45, said arms being secured to the shaft 40 bythe pin 46. A spring 47 moves the governor weights to the osit-ion indicated in Fig. 4 when the engine is at rest. 48 indicates a collar whic-- is slidably mounted on the shaft 40 and which bears against the ends of thegovernor weights 44. Said collar 48 is adapted to engage the arm 49 (which is pivoted at 50), said arm 49 engages the collar 51 which is secured to the rod 37. A light coil spring 52 is mounted on the rod 37 and bears against the collar 51 and against the shoulder 54 ofthe governor housing 55; said spring 52 is much lighter thanthe spring 47 on the governor, so that spring 52 can act only as the governor speeds up and the weights 44 move outward, thereby allowing the spring 52 to move the rod 37 to the right (see Fig. 4), allowing thel cam shaft toshift to the left (see F ig.' 3) thereby running the engine with a shorter cut 0H. If'it is desired to shift the cam into reverse position, this can be done by manually lmoving the rod 37 to the left (see Figs. 3 and 4), until the valve roller (not shown) is in line with reverse f cam 33. A heavy spring 53 is mounted is moved to the left, the collar 51 will contact with the heavy spring 53; said spring 53 serves the purpose of moving the rod 37 to the right when said rod is released so that the cam will move back to the long cut-olf position. I do not deem it necessary togo into detailv on the type of cam I have shown and it-s operative relation to the en-y gine poppet valves as it is well known in t-he art and is clearly shown in Patent No.

.740,203 to Thomson dated September 29, 1903..

It Will be noted that when it is desired to back upthe car, which is done by reversing the steam engine, the rod 37 is movedto the left and away from the governor mechanism so that said ,governor action is in no way affected by moving said rod 37 to the-,.left. To more clearly point out the desirability of this arrangement, suppose that the car is running 30 miles per hour and it is desired to makea very qulck stop. The rod 37 can be moved to the left, thereby moving the reverse cam into action, without in any way opposing the action of the governor.- I have before pointed out that the automatic Ucontrol of the short and long cut-off adds greatly to the ease of operating the car and adds to the fuel mileage because the engine is always running with the proper cut-olf for the proper car or engine speed. This automatic control of the cut-oil' which is worked out in conjunction with the manual control of reverse, makes a very valuable and desirable combination.

I have before pointed out that about the only space available, for known types of boilers, in an automobile is under the hood. With the boiler taking up all available space under the hood, it becomes necessary to locate the engine on the rear axle, as shown in my Patent No. 1,358,117, dated November 9, 1920, if standard types of automobile bodies are used. in one steam automobile the boiler was lo cated under the dri'vers seat, but this location has many serious objections and does not permit the use of a modern type of automobile body. 'IVith my horizontal type of boiler I am able to locate said boiler horizontally in the frame of the chassis on one side ofthe propeller shaft. I locate the water tank and storage battery on the other side of t-he propeller shaft. This permits the space under the hood to be used for any type of engine desired and by locating the engine under the hood the Vdrives for the radiator fan, dynamo, etc., work out nicely. A standard type of rear axle can be used and in fact any gasoline engine driven automobile can be equipped with, this steam plant without changing anything but the power plant. By so locating the boiler, nthe -products of combustion are discharged near the back of the car, and the roaring noise made by the fire is greatly reduced s0 that it cannotbe heard bythe passengers in the automobile.

I cla-im:

1. In a steam driven automobile, a steam engine, for driving said automobile located under the hood or at the extreme front part of the chassis, a propeller shaft attached to said. engine for driving the rear axle, an elongated `horizontal boiler located length- I realizethat wis'e in the frame of said automobile and below the floor level, and on one side of said propeller shaft, and having an outlet for the products of combustion at the rear part of the chassis.

2. In a steam driven automobile, a steam l engine, an elongated horizontal boiler for furnishing steam to said engine, located my hand.

. LEWIS L. SCOTT. 

